July 2024 U.S. Video Game Market Highlights from Circana - Projected U.S. spending on video game hardware, content and accessories reached $4.8B in July 2024, gaining 10% when compared to a year ago. 2024 year-to-date spending is now 2% higher than a year ago, at $32.1B. Video game content spending increased 10% in July compared to a year ago, as 29% growth in console content spending and an 8% increase in mobile was partially offset by a 6% drop in spending on PC, cloud, and non-console VR content.

May 4th.

Here are the best-selling Star Wars game, by platform, in the US (data 1995-Current, dollar sales). Source: Circana Retail Tracking Service.

Dreamcast - Star Wars: Episode I: Jedi Power Battles
Game Boy - Star Wars
GBA - LEGO Star Wars
GBC - Star Wars Episode I Racer Game Gear - Star Wars
Game Cube - Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
Genesis - Star Wars Arcade (32x)
3DS - LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars
N64 - Star Wars Shadows of the Empire
NDS - LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
NES - Star Wars

Dec 2023 U.S. Video Game Market Highlights from Circana - Annual U.S. spending on video game content, hardware and accessories reached $57.2 billion in 2023, an increase of 1% when compared to 2022. December spending grew 4%, to $7.9 billion. US Video Game market - 13 month rolling consumer spending by month and change versus prior year.

Circana is releasing Dec 2023 US video game market results on January 18th.

So, to celebrate, let's look back at 25 years of the best-selling video games!

These rankings include 100% of physical, as well as digital for these publishers that provide their digital sales:

🧵 1998 - Big year for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which finished on top.

But check out all the wrestling games that made this year's top 20!

May 2023 US Video Game Market Highlights from Circana - May 2023 U.S. consumer spending on video game content, hardware and accessories totaled $4.1 billion, a 12% increase when compared to a year ago. Spending gains were seen across Content, Hardware, and Accessories. Year-to-date consumer spending was flat when compared to the same period in 2022, at $21.8 billion.

OCT 2019 US NPD THREAD - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare debuts as the best-selling game of 2019 and Switch leads hardware (again). Here are all the U.S. Video Game market highlights from The NPD Group! US NPD VG - October 2019 tracked spending across video game hardware, software, accessories and game cards totaled $1.03 billion, the second highest total for an October month this decade, trailing only the record setting $1.57 billion in October 2018.

The push to subscription and cloud based gaming services has one fundamental assumption baked in... that there is an untapped customer base out there that has balked at joining the current PC or Console gaming ecosystems. But what if this assumption proves incorrect? According to EEDAR's Gamer Segmentation Report, 2 out of 3 Americans plays Video Games of some sort. Of those that play, half have spent $0 over the past 6 months on gaming, choosing only free to play, primarily Mobile, games.

THREAD - Led by Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, tracked Dec sales reached $3.4B, +2% vs YA. Nintendo Switch finishes as the year's top HW platform, while Red Dead Redemption 2 is the best-selling game of the year. Here are all the U.S. market highlights from The NPD Group! US NPD VG - Dec 18 tracked spending across VG HW, SW, ACC & GC totaled $3.4B, +2% vs YA. Gains in Accessories and Game Card spending offset declines in Hardware and Software spend. This is the highest total tracked consumer spend for a December month since December 2015.

Quick hit takes from Nov NPD: PS4 led the month in Units, but did face some out of stocks, esp during BF. Switch did great, big growth in Units and Dollars, Xbox One sales levels were also strong, helped by promotional efforts. All 3 did very well. I was hoping to see stronger results from the PSVR bundling and promotion efforts, hopefully momentum can accelerate in Dec. Spyro, Fallout 76, God of War were my big SW surprises.

THREAD - We reach a record hardware sales milestone, while Red Dead Redemption 2 claims the title as November's best-seller... Here's the thread with all the U.S. Video Game October 2018 market results from The NPD Group! US NPD VG - November 2018 tracked spending across video game Hardware, Software, Accessories & Game Cards totaled $2.7B, flat vs YA. Gains in Hardware, Accessories and Game Card spending were offset by a decline in Software due to the shift of the launch of Call of Duty to Oct.

So, quick hit takes from the October 2018 U.S. Video Game data from The NPD Group:
- The lack of a SP campaign did not hurt Black Ops IIII launch month sales in the slightest
- On the full game Video Game side, year to date, both Physical and Digital game sales are up YoY (cont.) - Hardware cycles as we knew them are over
- The biggest games continue to break records, but the games that don't hit that threshold aren't selling as well as the data suggest they should
- There is more variety of games hitting the top 20 than I can ever recall (cont.)

THREAD - Record setting performances from Marvel's Spider-Man, NBA 2K19 and Forza Horizon 4... Here's the thread with all the U.S. Video Game September 2018 market results from The NPD Group! US NPD VG - September 2018 tracked spending across video game Hardware, Software, Accessories and Game Cards grew 7 percent when compared to a year ago, to $1.4 billion. Accessory and Game Card spending was the primary driver of growth.

US NPD VG - June 2018 spending across video game Hardware, Software, Accessories and Game Cards grew 25 percent when compared to a year ago, to $1.1 billion. Significant growth in both Hardware and Accessories & Game Cards offset a slight decline in Software. US NPD VG - YTD spending across video game Hardware, Software, Accessories and Game Cards is up 17% when compared to the same period YA, to $6.0 billion. Growth has occurred across all categories of spending, with the largest dollar growth coming from Accessories & Game Cards.